As artistic subject matter, clothing acts as a surrogate for the body. Going beyond garments in general, I find particular significance in underwear because it connotes intimacy. This is suggested not only by underwear's close proximity to the body, but also because it is a private garment. Also, the often form-fitting quality of underwear visually describes the body in a manner that is informative and sometimes alluring.  Inspiration for my work comes from a number of sources. Often content comes to me as the result of an experience: I materialize a thought, an idea, or a fear. Working from emotional recollections helps me comprehend my experiences.  Here is how one formative experience unfolded into an artwork: During the winter of 1995, I allowed my leg and armpit hair to grow out for the first time since I began shaving at the age of twelve. At about the same time, I arranged to take my drawing students to the University’s dairy barn to draw the animals. We visited the barn's maternity ward, where we witnessed the birth of a calf. After delivering the calf, the cow ate the placenta. Many of my students began to verbalize their distaste over the mother cow’s act. “Ewww!” and “Gross!” resonated throughout the space. I was not disturbed by the mother-cow’s eating the placenta. Rather, I thought of it as a perfectly natural occurrence.  That night, during my bath, I looked down at my hairy legs and felt sick to my stomach. My innards literally felt as if they were turning. My immediate response to the situation simply shocked me. It seemed ironic that I was able to watch a cow eat her placenta and think it perfectly natural, but when I viewed the hair on my own legs, I felt repulsed. (In contrast, it occurred to me that I have always found body hair on men to be an attractive physical feature.) Some time after my dairy barn and bathtub experience, I found myself inspired to create a work entitled Placenta Incident. Through this work I recall my physical and psychological responses to the growth of my leg hair. In the work, spiky implements embedded in the fleecy surface of the legs symbolize the dichotomy of the situation. Although I felt as if the visual presence and tactile quality of my actual leg hair was repellent, I also found I had a desire to change my attitude toward the hair and embrace this natural aspect of my physical self. My symbolic visual corollary was to beautify the spikes of hair with gold leaf, to reveal the possibility of value and worth. Unfortunately, this did not help undo my conditioned response to my leg hair. The presence of dark hair on my legs, even after the bristly quality had diminished, still made me feel unfeminine and heavy, attributes with which I was not at all comfortable. Reflecting on my bathtub epiphany, I realized that my cultural conditioning regarding popular contemporary female grooming habits could only be partially responsible for my nauseated response. Once sensitized to the relationship of hair, body image, and identity, a memory resurfaced. When I was a child, a relative told me that eating tomatoes would make one big, strong, and hairy-chested. Because I recognized hairy chests to be culturally attractive only for males, I ceased eating tomatoes. As an adult I overcame my aversion to tomatoes (after twenty years) and I have dispelled my negative association with eating them. In hindsight, I realize that this family member was only attempting to entertain himself, by telling tall vegetable tales. But, of course, when I was small I did not have the ability to separate truth from fiction. I believe the implications of this childhood story are far reaching. Experiences like these influence how we begin to perceive the importance that appearance plays in our lives. This particular recollection from childhood led me to make Tomatic Myth #4. The center object is a corset. I do not regularly wear restrictive garments like this, but I chose the corset because the shape produced suggests the physical attributes of a mature female torso. Contextually the corset is appropriate, because its historic purpose was to amplify femininity, by confining, defining, and re-forming a woman’s body. Tomatic Myth, No. 4 displays a juxtaposition of surfaces, inside and out. This parallels the duality of the self within an individual: the private and the public, the interior and the exterior, the physical and the psychological. I coated the interior of the garment with a reddish-brown wax. The exterior is covered with a concoction of jute, camel wool, horsehair, dehydrated cherry tomatoes, and shellac. The primary objective of this work was to materialize my anxieties about the growth of hair on a body that is otherwise recognized by our western society as attractive. Bestial hairs sprout from the surface, presenting a contradiction to the ideal.  The wall behind the corset contains shelves with mason jars full of seemingly organic material. I fabricated these objects, which are suspended in gelatin, to symbolically represent my childhood associations with tomatoes. I constructed the tomato-like forms from abaca, Styrofoam, jute, horsehair, matte medium, and tomato paste. I sought to portray the vegetable ominously, with budding protrusions, like potatoes left to sprout. With Tomatic Myth, No. 4, I intend the viewer to share my sense of bodily anxieties. Set is another work that addresses the "tomatic myth" as imagined by my pre-pubescent mind. The underwear, modeled after the sets that I had when I was young, is meant to be viewed from a child’s height. A small sewing bench is situated next to the work for the viewer to sit on. The ten-inch high bench doubles as a storage facility. Antiquated medical bottles fill the bench, displaying a collection of various hairs, both human and animal. Specimens are loosely identified with labels stained with coffee. Sharing the tomatic myth with one of my female friends led to the work entitled Harry Peter’s Crustic Myth. She had had a childhood experience similar to mine but in her case the food she avoided was bread crust. From the time that she was very small, her stepfather (whose name was Harry Peter) implied that not only would bread crust put hair on her chest, but that it would change her sex entirely. Her stepfather would say to her, “When I was a little girl, I ate all of my bread crust.” Similar to my aversion to tomatoes, my friend formed a distaste for bread crust. Like myself, she can now separate fact from fiction, but even in her thirties she continues to avoid eating the edges of her bread. I see her carefully cut away the extremities of a sandwich. I empathize with her oral associations.  When I began constructing the garment, I had no idea that Harry Peter was a child molester. Once this truth was told, it seemed appropriate that the union-suit form be hung in the traditional manner of displaying textiles. Not only could the bread crust tied within be viewed at close range, but also the format conjured associations of a flayed hide or a crucified body. In the end, I had created a carcass to symbolically release my friend from her childhood myth and from the individual who had tormented her as a child. I believe the result is haunting, whether or not the audience knows the story. I have also made material the stories of people I have not met. For an exhibition entitled Hair Stories (Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2000), I created a work called Dirty Little Secret. This dainty, dress-like form, with its pustule growths and ring of horsehair below, reflects the secret practice of X-ray hair removal. At the beginning of the twentieth century, someone discovered that X-rays could be used as an effortless and painless form of depilating unwanted body and facial hair. X-ray hair removal became a popular (albeit illegal) practice for American women. In the following years, many of these women developed small white spots on their skin and were subsequently diagnosed with radiation-induced cancer. The practice went completely out of fashion during World War II, after America witnessed the results of radiation inflicted upon the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.1 I was driven to create this sculptural work because I found it a poignant example of how destructive the pursuit of beauty can be. Other works, such as Jacket Pilosic, were created to function as metaphoric armor. When hunting for dangerous animals, the Asante of Ghana wear tunics that they believe harbor magical powers. These garments are covered with small amulets, encasing bits of the beasts (e.g., teeth, bone, and fur). The tunics are thought to empower the wearers and keep them from harm. Similarly, I created this garment as a talismanic device. It is meant to protect me from my fear of chest hair. More recent works, such as Corsets of Talis, are explorations of the polarities between masculinity and femininity, bestiality and humanity, and attraction and repulsion. As sculptural and wearable objects, they are intended to protect a feminine identity from psychological harm. Although I often cast garments over plaster molds of my own body, for Corsets of Talis I chose to cast cotton fibers over a more idealized (if not more sexualized) mannequin form to create the corsets. After cutting the corsets in two and finishing the edges, I attached grommets for lacing along the sides. The exterior of each corset was then treated with various media, such as tomato paste, animal teeth, bones, fish skins, stained hog gut, rusted bottle caps, glass beads, gold-leafed horns, and human hair. I adhered a felt-like paper, made from camel wool and jute, to the interiors. A recent invitation to participate in an exhibition entitled Material Witness: The Socio-Political in Contemporary Textile Art (at The Goldstein: A Museum of Design, University of Minnesota, June 2 – August 18, 2002) was a sympathetic environment for the debut of Wearing Thin. One of my students informed me that some women consume cotton to control their weight. When cotton expands in the stomach it diminishes hunger, but this can have serious physical and psychological repercussions. To share my discomfort regarding such a practice, I conjured stylishly long and elegant (but unrealistic) silhouettes by pouring lightly beaten cotton pulp over chicken-wire armatures. I augmented the exterior surfaces with acrylic paints, gold leaf, wax, and dirt. The gold leaf is intended to seduce the eye and indicate a sense of preciousness and value. From a distance the dresses may appear as graceful column-like figures. As one spends more time looking at the work, however, disquieting elements become apparent. The suspended dresses spin to reveal a flattened profile devoid of expected anatomical curves. Branches of cotton, dangling internally, are discovered upon close inspection.  I understand that men are also concerned with their exterior appearance. However, in our culture it seems that females invest more of their identities in their physical selves than males. Whether the media, personal experiences, or other factors contribute to our perceptions of the self, I believe the societal value placed on beauty is an undeniable reality.  I strive to elude definitive interpretation of my work. Although my works have feminist underpinnings, I do not wish to overtly disclose my experiences or beliefs. Rather, I intend for individuals to take from my work what they will. I hope to visually entice viewers to investigate the work on their own terms, at their own pace. The title of a work might offer a bit of cryptic information, encouraging interpretation or speculation. When I am given the opportunity to talk about my work, I find that my stories are not unique. Sometimes an exchange takes place. If I tell a story drawn from my experiences, others often reward me with stories of their own. This is a magical process. If, through my work, I can raise a little social consciousness regarding the issues of identity, or help others understand the relationship between their feelings about their bodies and the influence of their culture, then I feel I have succeeded. Notes 1. Rebecca Herzig. "Removing Roots: 'North American Hiroshima Maidens' and the X-Ray," Technology and Culture, Vol. 40, No.4, October 1999. Pp. 723-745.